


desperate for answers

by damnmysterytome



Series: let her stay dead [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 20:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6673801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnmysterytome/pseuds/damnmysterytome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow-up to "nothing; no one".</p><p>Frank goes to Karen's childhood home in hope for something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	desperate for answers

Frank doesn't know what he's expecting to find when he's standing on the front porch of Karen's parents house. He doesn't know what he's really doing there. How is he going to explain who he is? Sure, her parents probably don't know about all the goings on in Hell's Kitchen, but it's not like his crimes didn't make National news. He shakes the thoughts from his head and brings his hand to the door, knocking on it and taking a step back.

He looks around the property and he wonders if Karen grew up at this house. He can't imagine her living on a farm, riding horses, taking care of chickens and cows. He tries to imagine it and when his eyes burn, he clears his throat and forces the thought from his head. A few seconds later, the door opens and for a second he thinks Karen is in front of him. If Karen had aged about twenty years. “Mrs. Page?” He asks, looking down at the woman.

“Yes.” She says, looking up at him. She's much shorter than Karen is, but she has the same shade of blonde hair and the same blue eyes that stare up at him with curiosity and determination. “Can I help you?”

For a minute, he forgets why he's here and what he had rehearsed to say in the car ride while he drove over here. “My name is Frank.” Leave his last name out of it. “I knew.. I knew your daughter.” Her face falls and softens and she steps back to let Frank into the house. He steps in after a few minutes and looks around. It's warm and inviting, looks like a good place to raise a family.

Mrs. Page leads Frank into the living room, that looks like almost no living does in it. It doesn't look like anyone spends any time in here. There's a portrait above the fireplace, something his wife had always wanted to do but Frank never could make the time for. From it, he assumes Karen was a teenager. For a house on a farm, it seems more put together than he would have thought.

“Would you like some coffee?” Mrs. Page asks. Frank cranes his head around to look at her and nods.

“Yes, ma'am, please.” He says. Mrs. Page leaves the living room and Frank begins looking at the pictures that litter the mantle. Some of them are of Karen, some of them are of her brother, some of them together. The photos go up until Karen looks about seventeen, then they completely stop. He knows why, her brother died, Karen left home. He doesn't know much outside of that.

He hears footsteps behind him and Mrs. Page is returning with coffee. He takes the mug from her and moved to sit down on one of the couches, lifting the mug to his lips and taking a small sip. His nose scrunches up and he moves a coaster towards himself, setting the mug on top of the coaster.

“How did you know Karen?” She asks. Okay, so she doesn't know who he is. Or she's bullshitting him and while she made coffee she called the police. Frank's 98% sure it's the first one. He's pretty good at telling if people are bullshitting him.

“She, uh, helped me out with some stuff a while ago.” Not a lie. “Work.” Still not really a lie. “Can I ask why you and your husband had her declared dead?” Frank asks, the words coming out all at once. He hadn't meant to ask that – yet.

Mrs. Page takes in a deep breath and looks at Frank for a moment. “It was easier for us to accept it than to hold onto it. Every time there's a knock on the door or a phone call, we think it's Karen. Even now. But,” She looks down at her hands for a moment before speaking. “if she wanted anyone to find her, she would.” Mrs. Page goes on to tell Frank about the few times that Karen ran away and how long she was gone. She was good at hiding when she wanted to be.

“Where's the body, then?” Frank asks, folding his hands together in frustration. He didn't understand how a mother could just accept her daughter as dead. But it's been the better part of a decade since Karen disappeared, it makes sense that she would feel better about accepting her death than getting her hopes up constantly. Right? “She didn't just poof into thin air. She's out there somewhere.”

He's acting a bit like an asshole now, but he's desperate for some kind of answer about Karen. Her mother watches him for a moment before speaking. “Did you love my daughter?”

Frank blinks at her for a moment and he scoffs. “No.” He says and maybe it's the truth, maybe it's a lie. He purses his lips and looks down at his hands again. “She's important to me.” He looks up at the mantle and the photos of Karen, biting on the inside of her cheek. “She grow up here?”

He sees her mother nod out of the corner of his eye. “Her and her brother.”

“Can I,” Frank clears his throat and glances over at her nervously. “Can I go up and see her room?”

“Third door on the left.” He says with a warm smile.

Frank nods and stands to his feet, leaving Mrs. Page in the living room to head upstairs. The house is easy enough to navigate and it only takes him a moment to find Karen's bedroom. He remembers from reading the file on Karen that was in her apartment that she left home right after she graduated, when she was 17. She'd been in New York ever since.

Karen's bedroom looks a lot like he imagined it would – not that he spent a lot of time imagining what Karen's teenage bedroom looked like. The wallpaper was obviously put up when Karen was a baby, little pink bunnies cover the walls. There's a few posters up, rock bands mostly (a detail Frank hadn't imagined) and a large photograph of downtown New York City is above a twin sized bed. There's a corkboard above it, pictures of friends and mementos from her high school times tacked up on it.

Frank stops by her bookshelf and looks through her books. Classics, Harry Potter, war books, mysteries. Frank recognizes a lot of titles from having read them himself. Color him surprised. There's a few figurines in front of the books, animals statues and those quarter machine toys. He moves from her bookshelf to her desk, stacks of books, letters from colleges, and left over school work stays. She wasn't kidding when she said she left home right away. Didn't even throw out her school work. And her parents never threw it out either. Frank flips through the school work, mostly A's. He's not surprised there.

He turns from her desk and moves to sit on her bed, picking up the blue stuffed bear that rest on the bed. His lips turn up in a smile. His high school girlfriend had the same one. Frank turns towards the shelves in her headboard, fingering the books until he realizes that one is her diary. He feels dirty about it, but he picks it up and opens it, flipping through it. Most of it is rambling about school, about boys, her friends, how annoying her little brother can be. The last page is nothing but her brother. About how he's gone, how it was her fault, how her parents can't look at her, how she needs to get away.

Frank closes her diary and puts it back where he found it. He sits on her bed for several minutes, soaking in everything about the room. It's exactly how he imagined it and nothing like he had imagined it at the same time. He sighs and brings his hands to his head, running his fingers through his hair. Frank didn't know why he had thought coming here would bring him some kind of comfort or some kind of answer, but he did.

He stands to his feet, smooths out her blanket, and leaves her bedroom. Frank walks down the hallway and to the stairs, walking down each step slowly. Once downstairs, he sits with Mrs. Page for a while longer, through three cups of coffee, and listens to her tell story after story about Karen Page as a teenager. He learns a lot about her, but it doesn't quell the churning in his stomach.

* * *

Frank returns to the apartment that Karen had once lived in a few days later, setting his duffle down. He'd cleaned it up, dusted and straightened up. He left most things the same, though. If Karen wasn't going to use it, he might as well. He'd stay in Hell's Kitchen for a while, maybe for good. He hadn't decided exactly what his next plans were. When he had returned to Hell's Kitchen a few weeks ago, he had intended it to be a few day stay.

He plops down on the couch that still smells faintly of her and runs a hand over his head, thinking of his trip to Vermont. Her mother, her father, everyone he spoke to thought she was dead.

That should have been enough for Frank. Hearing that her own mother believed that she was dead should have been enough for him. It wasn't.

Frank Castle didn't believe for a minute that Karen Page was dead.

  
  


 


End file.
